Perfect Imperfections
by Louvampyer
Summary: Mark thinks back on his time helping Roger. One shot. MR, but sorry, it's not slash


AN: This is my utter boredom getting the best of me… I wrote this (When I was supposed to be sleeping… -shhh-) and it just kinda came to me, so feel free to judge it… And I left out certain elements of the story, and rearranged other things, but it's my story, so I don't care! And I don't own anyone mentioned in this story, but I'm working on cloning them… I just need to get Anthony Rapp's DNA insert evil laugh…

AVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVA

Roger is perfect.

His bleached blond hair has finally grown out, just past his ears, to that the dirty blond locks dance when he laughs or plays his guitar. He used to complain that the short bleached spikes looked bad once just a bit of his original color shone through at the roots, so rather than tell him that we don't have the money for him to bleach it every other week, I recommended he grow it out.

His chewed up black nails have healed and are trimmed to the normal, non-bleeding length. He would whine when he would cut them or bite them so low that they would bleed so rather than tell him to stop complaining, I told him to just let them grow out, and I would show him how to cut them to the healthy, non-painful length.

Roger has a couple dozen track marks running up either of his arms. Once he was finally sober, he would tug at his tank tops and torn tee shirts, ashamed of the marks and what they stood for in his life, refusing to leave the house. So I saved all the money I could, and bought him a worn leather jacket to cover his arms, allowing him to leave the apartment again for the first time in months.

Roger has AIDS. A fatal disease infecting his perfect body. I watch him suffer, locking himself away, hiding alone in the darkness of his room, and there is nothing I could buy, nothing I could say, nothing I could do that would magically make it better. When he found out, it was a week of him clinging to me, his dirty blonde hair brushing against my cheeks, his clean cut nails digging into my wrists, his leather jacket clad arms thrown tightly around my neck while he cried, begging me to fix his mistakes again, because that's what I do. I either tell him what to do, I fix it myself, or I hide it, and this was the first time in all our time together that I knew I couldn't. After that week of crying and clinging to me, Roger realized that I didn't have any magic words this time, that's when he retreated to his room, and by that point, nothing I could say or do would work.

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Our old roommate has a new boyfriend, and his boyfriend goes to these meetings. Our old roommate and his boyfriend both have AIDS, like Roger, and this meeting is full of other people with AIDS, so I went to a few of them, trying to understand what was going on with Roger, in his otherwise perfect body. At this meeting, while I watched and filmed, I noticed this girl. She was Latin, and feisty, and always smiled for my camera, and never seemed as depressed about her condition as all the others. After a meeting one day, she asked me what I was filming for, and we ended up talking, me and this girl, and I couldn't help but realize how much she reminded me of Roger, before everything. So I told this girl all about Roger. She was interested and impressed with everything I told her, and when I got to the part about him not leaving his room, she almost seemed excited, as if I was challenging her to get him to come out. We ended up living in the same building (I knew I had seen her around, I just couldn't figure out where.) and I told the girl to come by sometime, and she said she would.

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It's odd. Of all the times I stay home, taking care of Roger, the girl would pick one of the very few times that I'm not home to come by. After just a few days of her hanging around, Roger had left the apartment again. The girl winked at me, her arm laced around Rogers as they walked out the door. Her part of the challenge was complete. I think that that's all it was at first, a challenge, but you can't blame either of them for actually falling in love, hell, even I liked the girl. She was nice, honest, spunky, easy enough to get along with, but I couldn't help but hold a small grudge. What had she said or done that I couldn't do for him? I gave up the better part of my life for Roger, and she just comes in with a promise of today, and that's good enough for him? I brought her here after all! I told her how to talk to him and what not to talk about, what topics to bring up, and what topics to avoid. But then, Roger doesn't know that. Roger was always mine to help, and with this girl around, he doesn't really need my help anymore.

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This new girl has been with us for a few months now, and I've faded further into the background. I don't like the view from here, and I think everyone can tell. Now, I don't know if the girl told him, or if Roger really did just put two and two together, but yesterday he gave me a hug, told me he loved me, squeezed my shoulder, and smiled before walking back to the girl, who winked at me again. Call me crazy, but I think that that was Rogers way of letting me know that he knows that I'm still saving him.


End file.
